posted at 1:30 pm on November 12, 2009 by Ed Morrissey

It’s very fair to send people who disregard the federal mandate to buy health insurance to prison, Nancy Pelosi says, because otherwise they’ll assault citizens … with a bill for medical services … or something. Apparently, the occasionally unhealthy have become such a security risk that we need to imprison them for opting to pay their own way. Infidels Are Cool has the key exchange::

Stone: Do you think it’s fair to send people to jail who don’t buy health insurance?

Pelosi: … The legislation is very fair in this respect.

Of course, the other option is to make people responsible for paying their own bills. Nothing requires us to pick up the tab for people in clinics or emergency rooms, especially those who can afford to pay their way. This is the point that Pelosi and her statist colleagues seem to forget. People who choose not to buy coverage even though they could afford it assume the risk of paying out of pocket — and that may be a very rational choice, as it is most unlikely that those people would use $3,000 a month in medical services, which is what their insurance would cost now.

If nothing else, it reminds us that statism always comes with handcuffs, and those cuffs always get explained by either fairness or patriotism. In this case, Pelosi uses both.

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now..that’s comedy
please..please send me to jail for not buying your insurance..please,,
waterloo…has come….the gloves are off..fight or end up in a “health care” camp…oh yeah…could see this coming a light year away

I have an HSA with a $6k deductible so I pay out of pocket and unless something catastrophic happens to me or one of my family I will never use my insurance. That is how we solve the cost issues of health care.

The Left wing of the Democrat party must be stopped. I don’t care if we have to organize a million armed man march on DC and physically eject these unAmerican freaks from the Capitol building permanently.

People who choose not to buy coverage even though they could afford it assume the risk of paying out of pocket — and that may be a very rational choice, as it is most unlikely that those people would use $3,000 a month in medical services, which is what their insurance would cost now.

I know people who do not have health insurance and who have never ask anyone for anything. Some people just prefer to pay their bills when they incur the debt. Not before.

For instance, the Amish in this area do not have insurance, virtually any insurance. And no one has to pick up the tab for them.

DerKrieger on November 12, 2009 at 1:36 PM
I have an HSA with a $6k deductible…

Sweet plan, wish I had one like that.

The Left wing of the Democrat party must be stopped.

If this law is passed, I wonder how you organize a mass civil disobedience where people feel confident that their fellow citize is also not going to participate. Get the number of people is “violation” of the law too numerous to prosecute.

It’s very fair to send people who disregard the federal mandate to buy health insurance to prison, Nancy Pelosi says, because otherwise they’ll assault citizens … with a bill for medical services … or something.

Whore.
Why not put Charlie Rangel or Chris Dodd in jail first? And, Maxine Waters? Oh yeah, I think we should just put the entire congress in jail for stealing our children’s and grand children’s futures.

I simply refuse to believe that with all the totalitarian measures that the average American would even think about supporting this. This is so beyond the pale, over the top, and outragous I cannot understand how the Leftist Statist Media can keep spinning up the happy faces that lets this proceed. I know you should never underestimate the stupidity of of public, but wow!

I called my Senator, Lincoln (D-CA) and told her staffer that I think Lincoln ought to switch parties because surely she wouldn’t want to be associated with the far Left. Especially here in AR that went for McCain with 59% of the vote last year.

If this law is passed, I wonder how you organize a mass civil disobedience where people feel confident that their fellow citize is also not going to participate. Get the number of people is “violation” of the law too numerous to prosecute.

WashJeff on November 12, 2009 at 1:39 PM

I don’t think that is going to happen. This turd of a bill still needs to get through the Senate and they are already bailing on it. Reid simply does not have the votes to get this bill to the President. Even if he did, as soon as it was signed into law about a gazillion lawyers would be suing in every state over it. This affects the rich very much and they are not going to pay fines without a fight.

And Pelosi – unintentionally because she’s dumber than a bag of hammers – tips her hand.

This is what the government means when it says “competition.”

When they said they wanted to have “fair competition” for insurance providers who don’t forcibly extract money from anyone, they meant that you either chose who the government says you should choose, or you go to jail.” And when you resist the government’s gun in your face, Pelosi will say you “chose poorly.”

Any first grader can see that you never had a choice once the government got involved. This is Pelosi’s and the Obamacrats’ definition of “competition” – you go to jail or do what we say.

When offered a non-choice of jail at gunpoint or “voluntarily choose to buy” something that the government says you must buy or lose your freedom (dictionary definition of fascism), what’s the average citizen’s recourse?

If there is an opportunity to crash the system via civil disobedience, this is it. Everyone who must comply, should not comply, tehn watch the Dems try to jail otherwise “innocents”. Neither the prison system nor the Dems approval rating will be able to tolerate that.

Good thing there are center right college students reminding about the fruit of such thinking…Gulags! Here are some books Liberals need to read, if they haven’t been banned from college campuses already: Darkness at Noon, 1984, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, and Survival at Auschwitz. What is that historical proverb: Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it? So we know what America’s future will hold since Obama, Pelosi and the Democrats are unable to learn from history or revise it to justify their Totalitarian agenda.

It’s not just failure to buy insurance it’s failure to buy the “right” kind of insurance. For example for a person in his or her 20′s, it might make more sense to simply purchase catrostophic care but not cover checkups, basic medications, etc. Nope. Can’t do that. It would be illegal.